Blizzard's Fourth Q+A Answered, Achievements Next Topic

Blizzard just posted their next set of answers to the fourth Q+A they held recently. There are extremely varied answers this time around--most likely because the questions were generally all over the place! From enchanters and their wand creating past to oversized belts, this session of "Ask the Devs" is filled with interesting tidbits throughout and is a solid read.

Surprisingly, Blizzard even touches on dyes at the end with its final question about customization, saying that "dumping a bunch of dyes on the game" might make an effect "where some players might have fun playing around with the system for a bit" but that "a lot of players might change their colors once or twice and then forget about the feature after that." Blizzard, why you playing us like that? From hardcore to casual, a lot of players would remember that system--more than you think!

Oh, and those heirlooms being transferable between realms? "Someday."

There will be more of these sessions coming up in the near future as well. The topic of Achievements is slated to be tackled next.

Is there any chance we could have caster weapons involved in casting animations? It would look cool to be holding a staff and casting a spell through it, at least as a customization option.

This is something we would dearly love to do. We agree that melee specs get to see their weapons a lot more often in combat while it's easy for casters to forget about them. It's definitely on the list, but understand that we have so many races now (and two sexes for all existing races) that the animations get expensive to produce.

Would it be possible for city quartermasters to sell the same equipment that guards wear? Stats wouldn't matter.

Cool idea. We'll talk about it.

Are you planning to return to the original principle of designing the Tiers, when the sets were themed with the classes, not with the bosses that drop them? Do you have any plans to make the tier items visually different depending on your spec?

We try and alternate the themes in order to keep things feeling fresh. Players can get bored if things feel too formulaic. The Firelands raid has a really strong theme, so the tier sets are based on the various creatures that live on the elemental plane: for example, fire spiders for the warlock set. Other tiers don’t have as strong a unifying theme so we go back to the classes for that. In the Call of the Crusade patch, we did faction-specific armor to solidify the military feel and Horde vs. Alliance rivalry.

Varying tiers depending on spec is a cool idea, but it does add more work to the individual armor which usually means we’ll get less of it. Color shifts are one option, but tend to already use all of those. We have more unique art these days than ever before, but the number of items overall has grown tremendously faster.

I like the creative items that are dropped from Icecrown Citadel such as Nibelung, Heartpierce, Deathbringer's Will. Can I see more of such items containing unique proc-effects in the near future?

Yes. We think the procs are a good way from keeping the weapons from just feeling like a predictable bag of stats. There will be more in Firelands.

Will enchanters be getting back the ability to make wands?

We have been discussing what role in the game wands are supposed to fill. We generally consider it a failure these days if a caster ever wants to wand for dps instead of using their spells. Working the wand into the cast animation (as in the question above) is one idea. In any event, we want to figure out what we want wands to do before we give them any more prominence.

Any chance we can start heading away from WWE-esque belts?

Azeroth is stricken by a terrible plague that inflates the size of shoulders and belts over time. Our artists like the belts because they have more room for detail when they’re larger. That said, your concern is duly noted.

Do you have plans to make is so that the tabards don't suddenly cut off whenever we wear long vestments?

This is a technical issue that’s fairly nasty to fix and ultimately trimming the tabard ended up looking better, at least as a short-term solution.

Can we see gear won via need rolls become soulbound?

Yes. We plan on implementing a system where winning an item via Need (when using the Dungeon Finder Need Before Greed loot system) will make a BoE item soulbound. We hope to have this working for the 4.2 patch.

To expand on that idea in case it’s not obvious, we don’t think players should be able to claim certain loot drops based on their class if their only intent is to sell the item. If you want to use the item yourself, awesome, go ahead and roll Need on it and you’ll get preference over players who can’t use that armor type. But if all you want to do is run to the Auction House, then everyone should have equal dibs.

How do you plan on normalizing Legendary weapon aquisition rate between 10 man and 25 man raids? If the drop rate is the same for 'shards' in 10 and 25 man raids, this may 'force' 25 man guilds to run 2-3 10 mans in order to maximize shard/legendary aquisition. If the drop rate for 'shards' in 25 man raids was 2.5 times than that in 10 man, it could take a 10 man guild say, 2.5 months to gain a legendary whereas a 25 man guild would take 1 month.

Our main goal is to offer the Legendary in both 10 and 25 without requiring say a 25-player raid to feel like they have to switch to running 10s for the sole purpose of Legendary fragment acquisition (and the same is true for 10s). Our plan is to make Legendary completion take longer to acquire in 10-player raids. The exact ratio will be somewhat obfuscated because of the variation in the amount of fragments dropped per boss based on both raid size and raid difficulty. However, you can plan on it being maybe 2 to 2.5 times faster for the 25-player raid. It should feel analogous to number of Valor points or gold dropped in 25s, and is being treated the same.

Without giving too much away, the Firelands legendary weapon has an amazing story and quest chain associated with it. We think it truly delivers on the fantasy of a legendary weapon.

I feel that the current item drop ratio per part for caster's is little bit weird. While belt slot items are very common, wrist and ranged (wand) item are drastically rare. Now players don't like going to Throne of the Four Winds because belt and pants are so easily acquired via other way. What if the drops of Throne of the Four Winds changed into rare slot items, such as wrist and wand?

There are a few issues embedded in this question. One is that while we like the random nature of the Throne of the Four Winds gear overall, it occupies a strange niche in the current itemization scheme. Al'Akir for example is fairly challenging, but so are Cho'gall and Nefarian. The net result is that many players lack epic legs, heads or shoulders and so have a strong incentive to spend Valor Point on their tier set of legs. By the time they defeat Al'Akir, nobody wants his legs. We plan on tweaking those loot tables a little for 4.1; Al'Akir will drop some random necks and cloaks as well as helm or shoulder tokens in addition or in some cases instead of his current loot.

As far as some items being rarer than others, that is the kind of thing we vary so that every tier of content doesn’t feel like a photocopy of the previous tier with bigger numbers. Our PvP gear for a variety of reasons has become very formulaic, and we don’t want the same thing to befall PvE. Bracers are hard to get now (though the trolls in 4.1 have a lot!), but next tier it might be a different item that becomes precious.

What are the criteria you use to design the loots in a certain dungeon/ raid? Is it the backgrounds of the encounters, the preference of the designers, or basing on the existing models?

All of that and more. As in the question above, if the dungeon or raid has a really strong visual kit, then we definitely jump on that. When you consider say the Cataclysm dungeon tier, there was a really diverse set of environments with no strong unifying theme. We could have tried to plan ahead of time that say Corborus would drop a certain weapon so we should theme it like a ring worm. That kind of rigid planning though doesn’t allow us a lot of room to maneuver if we decide to add a boss, change the source of certain items or so on. Naming the items can come from a variety of sources. Sometimes we play off of the boss (Symbiotic Worm from Magmaw), but there are pop-culture references (License to Slay), inside jokes (Chestplate of Hubris), and words that just sounded appealing together (Battleplate of the Apocalypse).

Is there any plan to allow Account Bound items to be transfer to other realms? This could really give meaning to the phrase "Account Bound".

Yes. Some day. It will take a lot of programmer time to implement, but it’s something we want to do.

Is it possible to let the players create/edit their own looks?

As we said in an earlier Q&A, we definitely hear loud and clear from players that they want more customization for their character. This is something we want to provide, but we want to do it in the right way. Consider the Barber Shop feature. It lets you change your character's hair, but there’s not a lot of gameplay to it. We're not sure that feature really added a lot to the game in retrospect. Is WoW more fun for you now that you have a Barber Shop? Are you more likely to keep playing because of it? Maybe, but it wasn’t a cheap feature to add in terms of development time. Dumping a bunch of dyes on the game might have a similar effect, where some players might have fun playing around with the system for a bit, but a lot of players might change their colors once or twice and then forget about the feature after that. Now, not every aspect of the game needs a ton of depth and a lot of interesting decisions, but we tend to attract more players to a feature the more robust the feature is.

We also think it's fair to argue that the game just needs more armor and weapon art. As we said above, we deliver a lot of art these days, but we also produce an enormous number of new items every expansion or patch and it’s understandably disappointing whenever items use the same art. It would be really cool if not every mage or priest converged on the same look after a given expansion or patch.

Comments

Comment by Rilgon

on 2011/04/05 13:40:11

This is something we would dearly love to do. We agree that melee specs get to see their weapons a lot more often in combat while it's easy for casters to forget about them. It's definitely on the list, but understand that we have so many races now (and two sexes for all existing races) that the animations get expensive to produce.

Funny, Rift did it for 6 races, 2 genders, four weapon types (one-hander, one-hander + off-hand, two-hander, unarmed/swimming), and six elements of spells (every element has its own cast animation based on the above).

It would be really cool if not every mage or priest converged on the same look after a given expansion or patch.

You know, they make these really nice things called "cosmetic armor slots"...

Comment by perculia

on 2011/04/05 13:40:50

Glad to hear the Throne of the Four Winds concerns--incentive to run that is pretty low. Between crafted/rep belts and VP rings, most raiders are tired of Conclave too at this point. I wish that Al'akir would drop slightly different loot in 4.1 though--you can get VP capes pretty cheap and there are several 359 rep necks. Make the mount a higher drop, that would be a good incentive.

I definitely don't think dyes would be forgotten quite that fast :)

Comment by Kalx

on 2011/04/05 13:41:30

They're completely off on the dye comment. I hardly doubt the majority of players would "forget it" like the barbershop. You only get hair once, and you only change when you feel like it, but with dyes, whenever you get a new piece of armor, you'll feel compeled to try new colors to match your current gear. It's a renewing system, not a "one-time only deal" like the barber shop, where you get your results once and that's it.

I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people out there that wouldn't care a bit about dyes, but still, it would be a fun system for customization and a decent gold-sink, which is always "good" for the economy.

Comment by Gnub

on 2011/04/05 13:42:04

The casting animations would be awesome indeed!

Also, can't wait to experience the epic legendary. Must have! :D

Comment by Rainemard

on 2011/04/05 13:46:29

Can we see gear won via need rolls become soulbound?

Lylirra said: Yes.

And i'm a little confused at how asking about wands being added back to an enchanter's list turned into what role wands are supposed to fill. Pretty sure the questioner just wanted to make wands.

Edit: Woah. Woah. Woah.

Dumping a bunch of dyes on the game might have a similar effect, where some players might have fun playing around with the system for a bit, but a lot of players might change their colors once or twice and then forget about the feature after that.

If the price was right, i'd play around with my color scheme every time I received new armor. I'll eat my hat if i'm the only one.

PS: I don't wear hats. But really Blizzard... i'm not the only one.

Comment by Interest

on 2011/04/05 13:48:07

This is something we would dearly love to do. We agree that melee specs get to see their weapons a lot more often in combat while it's easy for casters to forget about them. It's definitely on the list, but understand that we have so many races now (and two sexes for all existing races) that the animations get expensive to produce.

Funny, Rift did it for 6 races, 2 genders, four weapon types (one-hander, one-hander + off-hand, two-hander, unarmed/swimming), and six elements of spells (every element has its own cast animation based on the above).

Oh hi again. Being spiteful once more I see.

Azeroth is stricken by a terrible plague that inflates the size of shoulders and belts over time. Our artists like the belts because they have more room for detail when they’re larger. That said, your concern is duly noted.

This made me chuckle. I will also agree...with the shoulder size. The belts...not as big of a deal (I play an orc, so go figure).

Can we see gear won via need rolls become soulbound?

Lylirra said: Yes.

There's a pretty obvious bit of reasoning behind this. Do some random dungeons and watch as BoEs drop and get needed on by players who don't need them. It doesn't happen every time, but it occurs frequently enough to make this a good change.

Comment by Ashelia

on 2011/04/05 13:49:31

They're completely off on the dye comment. I hardly doubt the majority of players would "forget it" like the barbershop. You only get hair once, and you only chance when you feel like it, but with dyes, whenever you get a new piece of armor, you'll feel compeled to try new colors to match your current gear. It's a renewing system, not a "one-time only deal" like the barber shop, where you get your results once and that's it.

Speak for yourself about the barbershop! I may or may not have spent thousands of golds on haircuts... =( (Good argument, though, and totally right--except for outliers like me.)

Comment by Umega

on 2011/04/05 14:05:54

Surprisingly, Blizzard even touches on dyes at the end with its final question about customization, saying that "dumping a bunch of dyes on the game" might make an effect "where some players might have fun playing around with the system for a bit" but that "a lot of players might change their colors once or twice and then forget about the feature after that." Blizzard, why you playing us like that? From hardcore to casual, a lot of players would remember that system--more than you think!

It would be awesome to have an armour dyeing feature. I played Rift for a few weeks and I noticed it has armour dyeing. I thought it was awesome at first and tried it out, but then thought it was a bit impractical dyeing questing gear that would easily get replaced every few levels just to look good.

Armour dyeing is a cool nifty perk, but I have to agree with Blizzard that it would get old quickly and will end up being a "meh" feature.

Comment by Lockerup

on 2011/04/05 14:07:43

"Will enchanters get the ability back to make wands?"- We don't want casters to use wands for dps.Did anyone proofread this?

Comment by Jsin

on 2011/04/05 14:12:18

This is something we would dearly love to do. We agree that melee specs get to see their weapons a lot more often in combat while it's easy for casters to forget about them. It's definitely on the list, but understand that we have so many races now (and two sexes for all existing races) that the animations get expensive to produce.

Funny, Rift did it for 6 races, 2 genders, four weapon types (one-hander, one-hander + off-hand, two-hander, unarmed/swimming), and six elements of spells (every element has its own cast animation based on the above).

It can be expensive in two different ways. Expensive as in memory, which really isn't a problem in WoW's case, and expensive in paying the various artists and programmers to complete/implement said animations.

Comment by VioletArrows

on 2011/04/05 14:15:23

...where some players might have fun playing around with the system for a bit, but a lot of players might change their colors once or twice and then forget about the feature after that.

...Maybe if I had more than four friggin' hairstyles (3 of which are the same braid at different lengths) and three colors to choose from. >:/

Meanwhile, the shop had booming business since my draenei's braid has been bugged since December. Just take the base anchor point off!

Comment by diablo200

on 2011/04/05 14:19:24

Blizzard could learn a lot from character creation in games such as Guitar Hero, or Tony Hawk. Granted those aren't the best games, but they have decent character customization, not just 5 different faces you can choose from, 8 different hairstyles, or 5 skin colors. I want to be able to make my face unique from the other players. Sure armor all looking alike can be a big thing, but some people are more concerned with their character itself. As for the dyes, I'd probably use it.

Comment by Interest

on 2011/04/05 14:20:38

Blizzard could learn a lot from character creation in games such as Guitar Hero, or Tony Hawk. Granted those aren't the best games, but they have decent character customization, not just 5 different faces you can choose from, 8 different hairstyles, or 5 skin colors. I want to be able to make my face unique from the other players. Sure armor all looking alike can be a big thing, but some people are more concerned with their character itself. As for the dyes, I'd probably use it.

At least it's not Neverwinter Nights 2.

Be glad of that. (Thank god for modules)

Comment by ArthurianKnight

on 2011/04/05 14:24:16

DC Universe Online provided a great way of making looks a reality and believe me the players do use them a lot. i dont know why blizzard haven't seen their problem already its evident, the problem is stats. as long as we need to focus on stats in order to change looks, we'll be screwed.

i dont think people will ever want to put on thoe level 60 tier 2 sets when their stats will be awefully sub par.i understand the point of them wanting to make gears hinting other players of what kind of stats you have... but in the same time it can only lead to them clogging up the same outfit to about everyone. if they want to give players more customisation without having to add anything more to the game... they have to separate stats from looks, just like they did in DCUO !

BTW, those who points that other "NEW" mmo did it and that wow shouldn'T be hard to do it...might i remember you one single fact, thoseRPGS are new and as such took years of creating.World of warcraft took years of creation, but its not new, it has been going on for 6 years.addingcontent to a game that is already done and played by millions is much harder then what it is beforeany players ever know about it.

Comment by 13thDegree

on 2011/04/05 14:28:09

This is something we would dearly love to do. We agree that melee specs get to see their weapons a lot more often in combat while it's easy for casters to forget about them. It's definitely on the list, but understand that we have so many races now (and two sexes for all existing races) that the animations get expensive to produce.

Funny, Rift did it for 6 races, 2 genders, four weapon types (one-hander, one-hander + off-hand, two-hander, unarmed/swimming), and six elements of spells (every element has its own cast animation based on the above).

You must realize it's inherently easier for a game to come in with those things already developed and programmed into the game from the start. It's expensive, from Blizzard's standpoint, to implement something like that in-game ONLY because they'd have to redesign a majority of the games' spell/ attack animations (most of which have been the same since launch). So, the Rift comparison isn't really fair.

Later on, when Rift wants to do something different, they'll have to experience the same thing Blizz is now. That is - weighing the cost of (mostly) a complete redesign of it's original animation systems for the sake of variety and originality versus it's current set-up.

Comment by pyper91

on 2011/04/05 14:28:20

it would be nice to see some better character customization maybe take a page from NC soft's character creation but maybe not as extensive. Also dye's would be awesome and MORE HAIRSTLYES! Animations for healing with my staff would be really cool to see how they look. All in all i'd come back to wow definately if they added in a bunch of these...once i have the means that is.

Comment by Demolix

on 2011/04/05 14:35:56

They're completely off on the dye comment. I hardly doubt the majority of players would "forget it" like the barbershop. You only get hair once, and you only change when you feel like it, but with dyes, whenever you get a new piece of armor, you'll feel compeled to try new colors to match your current gear. It's a renewing system, not a "one-time only deal" like the barber shop, where you get your results once and that's it.

I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people out there that wouldn't care a bit about dyes, but still, it would be a fun system for customization and a decent gold-sink, which is always "good" for the economy.

Speaking of good for the economy how's about giving this crafting ability to the scribes eh? We were screwed when the glyphs became character bound when used. That was a serious gold maker =D

Comment by madcowmike

on 2011/04/05 14:36:24

DC Universe Online provided a great way of making looks a reality and believe me the players do use them a lot. i dont know why blizzard haven't seen their problem already its evident, the problem is stats. as long as we need to focus on stats in order to change looks, we'll be screwed.

i dont think people will ever want to put on thoe level 60 tier 2 sets when their stats will be awefully sub par.i understand the point of them wanting to make gears hinting other players of what kind of stats you have... but in the same time it can only lead to them clogging up the same outfit to about everyone. if they want to give players more customisation without having to add anything more to the game... they have to separate stats from looks, just like they did in DCUO !

BINGO!

Comment by Kazlehoff

on 2011/04/05 14:43:12

Our plan is to make Legendary completion take longer to acquire in 10-player raids

Out of curiosity, did this piss anyone else off immensely?

all this talk for months before cata dropped about wanting 10 and 25 man to be equal.... and now this ON TOP OF 25 man heroic dropping more loot than 10 man heroic.

oh, and dont forget: because blizzards RNG loot system is so SCREWED you'll get the same plate healing gloves off of a boss SIX. WEEKS. RUNNING (this is a real world example in my guild.)

frankly at this point ive stopped caring when blizzard sais something about how they want 10 and 25 to be equal. its horse fecal matter.

Comment by Kazlehoff

on 2011/04/05 14:45:33

to Expound on my original comment:

....without requiring say a 25-player raid to feel like they have to switch to running 10s for the sole purpose of Legendary fragment acquisition (and the same is true for 10s).

Except that's not true in the slightest. in fact, its a bald faced lie. 10 man raids will want to shift up for legendary acquisition because............

Our plan is to make Legendary completion take longer to acquire in 10-player raids.

Again, people who are not interested in leading 25 man guilds (such as myself) get @$$^%($ed by blizzard.

how about this: make the legendary Acquisition take just as long in 10 OR 25 man raids and stop beating around the bush with this "We want everything to be equal!1!one!11!" garbage.